The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-05-14
Mark Twain in the War.

Baltimore Friday night, Mark Twain
gave his war history, as follows.
"When your secretary invited me
to this reunion of the Union Veter
ans of Maryland he requested me to
come prepared to clear up a matter
which he said had long been SUBJ
ject of dispute and bad blood in war
circles In this cOuntry-to wit. the
true dimensions of my military SER
vices in the Civil War, and the effect
which they had on the general re.
suit. recognize the importance of
this thing to history, and l have
come prepared. Here are the de-
tails. I was in the CIVIL War two
weeks. In that brief time l rose from
private. to Second Lieutenant. The
monumental feature of my campaign
was the one battle which my COM
mand fought-it was in the summer
of 1861. If 1 do say it, it was the
bloodiest battle ever fought in hui
man history; there is nothing ap-
preaching it for destruction of human
life in the field, if you take into con-
sideration the forces engaged and pro-
portion of death to survival. And
yet you do not even know the name
Of that battle. Neither do l. 1t had
a name. but / have forgotten it. 1t
Is no use to keep private information
which YOU can't show off. Now look
OF the way history does. 1t takes the
battle of Bonneville, fought near by,
about the date of our slaughter, and
shouts its teeth loose over it, and yet
never even mentions ours dosen't
even call it an "affair )" dosen't call
1t anything at all never even heard
of il. Whereas, what are the facts ?
Why, these: In the battle of Boone
vile there were 1900 men engaged on
the Union side, and about as many
on the other-supposed to be. The
casualties, all told, were two men
killed; and not all of these were
killed outright, but only half of them
for the other man died in the hospi-
tai the next day.
1 know that, because his great-un-
Gle was second cousin to my grand
father, who spoke three languages.
and was perfectly honorable and up
right, though he had warts all over
him, and used to-but never mind
about that, the facts are just as say,
and can prove it, Two men were
killed in that battle of Bonneville,
that's the whole result. All the 9TH
ers got awsy-on both sides. Now
then, in our battle there were just
fifteen men engaged, on our side-all
Brigadier-G Generals but me, and l
was a Second Lieutenant. On the
other side there was one man killed.
He was a stranger. We killed him.
It was night, and We thought he was
an army of observation ; he looked
like an army of observation-in fact
he looked bigger than an army of OBJ
serYation would in the day time
and some of US believed he was try
Ing to surround us, and some thought
he was going to turn our position,
and so we shot him. Poor fellow, he
probably wasn't an army of obser-
yotion. after all, but that wasn't our
fault; as I say, he had all the look of
1t in that dim light. 1t was a sor-
rowful circumstance, but he took the
chances of war. and he drew the
wrong card /; he over-estimated his
fighting strength, and he suffered the
likely result but he fell as the brave
should fall with his face to the front
and his feet to the field-so we buried
him with the nonors of war, and took
mis- things. So began and ended the
only battle in the history of the
world where the opposing force was
utterly exterminated, swept from
the face of the earth-to the last man.
And yet. you don't even know the
name of that battle; you don't even
know the name of that man. Now,
then, for the argument. Suppose l
had continued in the war, and gone
on as 1 began. and extermlnated the
opposing force every time - every
two weeks-where would your war
have been? Why, you see yourself,
the conflict would have been too one
sided, There was but one honorable
course for me to pursue, and l pur-
sued it. / withdrew to private life,
and gave the Union cause a chance.
There, now, you have the whole
thing in nutshell it was not my
presence in the Civil War that deter
mined that tremendous contest-it
was my retirement from it that
brought the crash. 1t left the Con-
federate side too weak.-Erchange.
On the result of the recent munich
pal elections in Chicago and Cincin-
natl Senator Hale, of Maine, bases